TWO WORLDS…
Living between two worlds…both a joy and a challenge…
This season of my life has served as an incredible reminder of what it is to live between two worlds. As a follower of Jesus, I am always an “alien and stranger” on earth, but some seasons highlight this truth more than others.
While in the US, I fully give myself to the joys of family, friends, familiar surroundings, and known activities/traditions. Even in the midst of that joy, there is sometimes an ache that a whole realm of my life is unknown to those around me while still very, very present in my heart and mind…South African friends, new traditions and activities that I have grown to love, new experiences that have broadened my sense of the King and His world.
On the flip side, while in South Africa, I give myself fully to wonderful friends, new experiences, and kingdom work that brings great joy. However, there can sometimes be an ache at the lack of a sense of history, the knowing of my “roots”, and the familiarity that can only come with time.
One world often excludes the other and yet also enriches the other in unseen ways. It is both a strange and beautiful experience.
In a fresh way I am realizing all over again that I am not a citizen of earth. My true citizenship is secure in heaven and doesn’t change. I am known there FOREVER and fully, and there is a shared history with friends that dates back to the foundations of the earth and has everything in common through Jesus.
There is one King. He is eternal and doesn’t ever get elected or dethroned. I have a home that has been built with my specific desires and being in mind from which I will never have to move…built by One who knows exactly what I need.
He has visited and been a citizen of both places, and He knows all aspects of my current worlds.
In this season, I am so grateful that Jesus is “the sure foundation of my times. A rich storehouse of wisdom, salvation and knowledge….” He is my source of joy and hope as I transfer from one world to another, belonging totally to each in different ways, but often feeling a bit abnormal in both because I really belong to another world all together–an eternal one!!